The deleted Secret Service text messages sent the day before and the day of the insurrection will be turned over to the House Select Committee by Tuesday, a member of the Jan 6 Panel said Sunday.
The revelation from Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) came during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
“You can imagine how shocked we were to get the letter from the [DHS] inspector general saying that he had been trying to get this information and that they had, in fact, been deleted after he’d asked for them,” Lofgren told Martha Raddatz.
“I was shocked to hear that they didn’t back up their data before they reset their iPhones,” the congresswoman added. “That’s crazy. I don’t know why that would be.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleges that messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, were erased as part of a “planned system migration.” But experts said the move was highly unusual and suspicious.
“We need all the texts in order “to get the full picture,” Lofgren said, adding that the exact relevance of the Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 texts are unknown.
The committee subpoenaed the Secret Service for the deleted messages Friday and will likely receive the documents Tuesday, she said.
A Secret Service spokesperson said the agency has turned 800,000 records over to the committee, The Hill reported last week.
“We hope to go through minute by minute what happened, what didn’t happen on that day, and people can make their own judgment,” Lofgren said of the panel’s plans.
Another member of the Jan 6 panel, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), told CBS “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan on Sunday said it would be “quite crazy” if the Secret Service did in fact delete the text messages. He added that the circumstances of the missing messages remain to be seen.
“We’re going to know more Tuesday,” Kinzinger said.
Watch Lofgren’s interview below:
Investigators need all of the texts sent by members of Secret Service "to get the full picture" of what occurred before and during the Capitol attack, Jan. 6 Committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren tells @MarthaRaddatz.
"We expect to get them by this Tuesday.” https://t.co/ndHVcVDAHL pic.twitter.com/l8Ux4CRZ5J
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 18, 2022
